Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo on Android stage3

[William L. Thomson Jr.]

On Saturday, October 29, 2016 4:42:21 PM EDT M. J. Everitt wrote:
>
> Completely out of my depth here, but can you cross-compile a

On Gentoo yes its called crossdev[1]. You can have a build system/toolchain 
for any arch you need to make an entire system or binaries for and  them over 
to what ever device. Use a very powerful host system of a completely different 
arch, like x86_64 to build armv7 and others.

I did this a while back to make tun/tap kernel drivers for an android system. 
I also used it a very long time ago using docs in vapier's devspace[2] before 
it was documented else where. That was when I got my first x86_64 system and 
there were no 64bit pre-compiled kernels or livecds at the time. So I used a 
i686 Gentoo system to make a x86_64 kernel.

The best part of that last story, I got kernel patches from SuperMicro because 
x86_64 stuff was so new. The SuperMicro kernel patches were made against a 
Gentoo kernel.

1. https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Cross_build_environment
2. http://dev.gentoo.org/~vapier/CROSS-COMPILE-HOWTO

-- 
William L. Thomson Jr.


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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo on Android stage3

[Benda Xu]

Rich Freeman  writes:

> Well, that would be a different approach, but I imagine you could
> build for prefix-style install using something like Catalyst and
> cross-compile.  I have no idea how much tweaking that would require.
> The main issue is that unless you use qemu you're only going to get
> one pass.  If you are going to use qemu then you could just build it
> all in an emulator and copy it over.

qemu-user with binfmt on a powerful workstation was my option, until I
actually tried it out (around 2013).  It was much slower (5x? 10x?) than
running native on a phone.  Not sure if the emulation of qemu-user
significantly improved over the years.

> You definitely could create a squashfs of /usr/portage and then just
> mount that on your phone.  You could also nfs mount it I suppose, or
> use something like iSCSI (you might need kernel modules for both).  Or
> use something like sshfs.  I've also used a compressed ram filesystem
> for this purpose in the past (basically like a tmpfs only compressed,
> often used as a high-priority swap).
>
> And of course if you can spare the RAM you can build in tmpfs.
>
> So, there are definitely some "easy" options though some of them will
> cost performance.

Indeed.  Nice hints.  Actually we have zram documented in our wiki[1].

> Another option might be USB OTG.  I think the 6P supports that with
> the right drivers.  As long as it isn't noexec I'd think you could
> install Prefix on that.

Nexus should have no problem.  The only paranoid vendor was Samsung
with a subset of their products.

Benda

1. 
https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Asus_Transformer_Infinity_%28TF700T%29/Install#RAM_and_SWAP_considerations

Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo on Android stage3

[Benda Xu]

Hi Michael,

"M. J. Everitt"  writes:

>> No SD slot on Nexus.  We will stress the internal NAND flash with
>> millions of ebuilds and rsync :)

> Completely out of my depth here, but can you cross-compile and

Ah, I was half-joking. Considering the recent advancement of NAND flash,
I expect it lasts longer than those 3 years ago.  Back in 2013, I used a
low-quality class 10 microSD card for development, rsync'ed over 500
times before the card showed some signs of failure.

So it is pretty safe to rsync, say, once a week.  Before it wears out,
the phone will be outdated or squashdelta becomes available.

cross-compile is possible, but not trivial.  After all, the goal of this
project is to develop on Android *natively in-situ*, exactly the same as
PC: no more SDK, no more cross-compiling and no more ROM-flashing. Just
use portage to compile kernels, build java apps and rolling release,
what do you say?

ROM-flashing a phone is equivalent to reinstalling the whole OS on a PC.
My laptop runs nearly 10 years without reinstallion (and surviving a
migration from HDD to SSD).  The software on mobile devices is far more
inflexible.  What the android world lacks is a damn good solid package
manager, Gentoo/portage/Prefix is one way to save this chaos.

> is there some way of leveraging the USB-C connection on the Nexus 6P
> .. or are we talking super-complex then?!

Oh yeah, you can attach a USB flash drive or even an HDD[0] via a USB
OTG[1] adapter.

> Will keep you posted about the Samsung .. will have a stab over the
> holiday period.

Great.  Looking forward to it.

Benda

0. 
https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Asus_Transformer_Infinity_%28TF700T%29/Install#RAM_and_SWAP_considerations
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_On-The-Go


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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo on Android stage3

[Rich Freeman]

On Sat, Oct 29, 2016 at 12:22 PM, Benda Xu  wrote:
>
> Homework received.  I have little experience blogging though.
>
> I will need first to set up a blog and then draft a writeup.
>
> Any hints?

Gentoo can set them up, or you can just use Wordpress or whatever
(Gentoo wasn't taking new blog request when I set it up).  I suggest
keeping it simple.

If you need help with proofreading/etc you can always ask pr@, or one
of us I'm sure.

-- 
Rich

Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo on Android stage3

[Kristian Fiskerstrand]

On 10/29/2016 06:22 PM, Benda Xu wrote:
> Kristian Fiskerstrand  writes:
> 


> 
> I will need first to set up a blog and then draft a writeup.
> 
> Any hints?
> 

You can request a blog from blogs.gentoo.org and ask for it to be
included in planet and universe

-- 
Kristian Fiskerstrand
OpenPGP keyblock reachable at hkp://pool.sks-keyservers.net
fpr:94CB AFDD 3034 5109 5618 35AA 0B7F 8B60 E3ED FAE3



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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo on Android stage3

[Benda Xu]

Kristian Fiskerstrand  writes:

>>> Actually .. given my nosiness in -pr matters lately, anyone done a
>>> write-up for Planet.g.o or suchlike that we can post up to social media?
>>> From my own stand-point it might be something the wider community would
>>> be interested in, and didn't know was a 'thing'?
>> 
>> It would be a good thing, especially since this relies on Gentoo
>> Prefix (I think), 

@Rich, yes, that's true.

>> which is a fairly unique capability I've yet to see in any other
>> distro.
>
> +1
>
> Would certainly like to see a writeup of positive things in a blog post
> that can be shared in social media.

Homework received.  I have little experience blogging though.

I will need first to set up a blog and then draft a writeup.

Any hints?

Benda


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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo on Android stage3

[Benda Xu]

Francesco Riosa  writes:

> Christmas is coming, I'll enjoy this

Haha, good point.  Should've called it Halloween release ;)

Benda

Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo on Android stage3

[Rich Freeman]

On Sat, Oct 29, 2016 at 11:42 AM, M. J. Everitt  wrote:
> On 29/10/16 16:35, Benda Xu wrote:
>> No SD slot on Nexus.  We will stress the internal NAND flash with
>> millions of ebuilds and rsync :)
>>
>> That makes me think of squashdelta sync, but probably after gaining
>> control of linux kernels to manage the squashfs module.
>>
> Completely out of my depth here, but can you cross-compile and is there
> some way of leveraging the USB-C connection on the Nexus 6P .. or are we
> talking super-complex then?!
>

Well, that would be a different approach, but I imagine you could
build for prefix-style install using something like Catalyst and
cross-compile.  I have no idea how much tweaking that would require.
The main issue is that unless you use qemu you're only going to get
one pass.  If you are going to use qemu then you could just build it
all in an emulator and copy it over.

You definitely could create a squashfs of /usr/portage and then just
mount that on your phone.  You could also nfs mount it I suppose, or
use something like iSCSI (you might need kernel modules for both).  Or
use something like sshfs.  I've also used a compressed ram filesystem
for this purpose in the past (basically like a tmpfs only compressed,
often used as a high-priority swap).

And of course if you can spare the RAM you can build in tmpfs.

So, there are definitely some "easy" options though some of them will
cost performance.

Another option might be USB OTG.  I think the 6P supports that with
the right drivers.  As long as it isn't noexec I'd think you could
install Prefix on that.

-- 
Rich

Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo on Android stage3

[Kristian Fiskerstrand]

On 10/29/2016 05:36 PM, Rich Freeman wrote:
> On Sat, Oct 29, 2016 at 11:18 AM, M. J. Everitt  wrote:
>> On 29/10/16 16:14, M. J. Everitt wrote:
>>> On 29/10/16 16:09, Benda Xu wrote:

 This is an announcement of the latest Gentoo on Android stage3 tarball,
>>
>> Actually .. given my nosiness in -pr matters lately, anyone done a
>> write-up for Planet.g.o or suchlike that we can post up to social media?
>> From my own stand-point it might be something the wider community would
>> be interested in, and didn't know was a 'thing'?
>>
> 
> It would be a good thing, especially since this relies on Gentoo
> Prefix (I think), which is a fairly unique capability I've yet to see
> in any other distro.
> 

+1

Would certainly like to see a writeup of positive things in a blog post
that can be shared in social media.

-- 
Kristian Fiskerstrand
OpenPGP keyblock reachable at hkp://pool.sks-keyservers.net
fpr:94CB AFDD 3034 5109 5618 35AA 0B7F 8B60 E3ED FAE3



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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo on Android stage3

[M. J. Everitt]

On 29/10/16 16:35, Benda Xu wrote:
> Hey MJE,
>
> "M. J. Everitt"  writes:
>
>> COOL ! I'll have to give this a try .. got an old(er) Samsung Galaxy
>> S4 Active,
> From our past experience[1], Samsung sometimes imposed noexec to /data by
> kernel hacks.  It'll be interesting to find out what it looks like on
> the Galaxy S4.
>
>> and I'm currently using the Huawei Nexus 6P ..
> No SD slot on Nexus.  We will stress the internal NAND flash with
> millions of ebuilds and rsync :)
>
> That makes me think of squashdelta sync, but probably after gaining
> control of linux kernels to manage the squashfs module.
>
>> Keep up the good work! :D
> Thanks and have fun.
>
> Benda
>
> 1. https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Android/Devices
Completely out of my depth here, but can you cross-compile and is there
some way of leveraging the USB-C connection on the Nexus 6P .. or are we
talking super-complex then?!

Will keep you posted about the Samsung .. will have a stab over the
holiday period.

Cheers,
Michael.



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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo on Android stage3

[Rich Freeman]

On Sat, Oct 29, 2016 at 11:18 AM, M. J. Everitt  wrote:
> On 29/10/16 16:14, M. J. Everitt wrote:
>> On 29/10/16 16:09, Benda Xu wrote:
>>>
>>> This is an announcement of the latest Gentoo on Android stage3 tarball,
>
> Actually .. given my nosiness in -pr matters lately, anyone done a
> write-up for Planet.g.o or suchlike that we can post up to social media?
> From my own stand-point it might be something the wider community would
> be interested in, and didn't know was a 'thing'?
>

It would be a good thing, especially since this relies on Gentoo
Prefix (I think), which is a fairly unique capability I've yet to see
in any other distro.

-- 
Rich

Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo on Android stage3

[Benda Xu]

Hey MJE,

"M. J. Everitt"  writes:

> COOL ! I'll have to give this a try .. got an old(er) Samsung Galaxy
> S4 Active,

From our past experience[1], Samsung sometimes imposed noexec to /data by
kernel hacks.  It'll be interesting to find out what it looks like on
the Galaxy S4.

> and I'm currently using the Huawei Nexus 6P ..

No SD slot on Nexus.  We will stress the internal NAND flash with
millions of ebuilds and rsync :)

That makes me think of squashdelta sync, but probably after gaining
control of linux kernels to manage the squashfs module.

> Keep up the good work! :D

Thanks and have fun.

Benda

1. https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Android/Devices


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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo on Android stage3

[M. J. Everitt]

On 29/10/16 16:14, M. J. Everitt wrote:
> On 29/10/16 16:09, Benda Xu wrote:
>> Hi Fellows,
>>
>> This is an announcement of the latest Gentoo on Android stage3 tarball,
>>
>>   
>> http://distfiles.gentoo.org/experimental/prefix/rap/rap-stage3-armv7a_hardfp-20161026.tar.xz
>>
>> snapshot from the latest main Gentoo repository, featuring gcc-5.4,
>> glibc-2.23, and the latest prefix-standalone (aka. RAP) profiles[1].
>>
>> The tarball runs Gentoo natively[2] under /data/gentoo (:=EPREFIX[3,4])
>> on a rooted[5] android device newer than 2011 or armv7a[6], alongside
>> the Android stack.
>>
>> The installation guide is at
>>
>>   https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:Android/tarball
>>
>> with a list of tested devices at
>>
>>   https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Android/Devices
>>
>>
>> Next we are going to build a normal-user version, and to manage Android
>> kernels with portage[7].
>>
>> Time to unleash the mobile power with Gentoo.
>>
>> Enjoy,
>> Benda
>>
>> 1. 
>> https://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-dev-announce/message/772326d735c8c7c469beffc0a9bb0b97
>> 2. No chroot or PRoot
>> 3. 
>> https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:Prefix/Technical_Documentation#EPREFIX_variable
>> 4. https://projects.gentoo.org/pms/6/pms.html#x1-12100011.1.3
>> 5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rooting_%28Android_OS%29
>> 6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_ARMv7-A_cores
>> 7. https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:Android
>> 8. Previous announcement:
>>
>> https://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-dev-announce/message/890e3e40977a37bb499fb02d35efe74a
>>
> COOL ! I'll have to give this a try .. got an old(er) Samsung Galaxy S4
> Active, and I'm currently using the Huawei Nexus 6P ..
>
> Keep up the good work! :D
>
> MJE
>
Actually .. given my nosiness in -pr matters lately, anyone done a
write-up for Planet.g.o or suchlike that we can post up to social media?
From my own stand-point it might be something the wider community would
be interested in, and didn't know was a 'thing'?

MJE



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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo on Android stage3

[Francesco Riosa]

Christmas is coming, I'll enjoy this

Thank you!

2016-10-29 17:09 GMT+02:00 Benda Xu :

> Hi Fellows,
>
> This is an announcement of the latest Gentoo on Android stage3 tarball,
>
>   http://distfiles.gentoo.org/experimental/prefix/rap/rap-
> stage3-armv7a_hardfp-20161026.tar.xz
>
> snapshot from the latest main Gentoo repository, featuring gcc-5.4,
> glibc-2.23, and the latest prefix-standalone (aka. RAP) profiles[1].
>
> The tarball runs Gentoo natively[2] under /data/gentoo (:=EPREFIX[3,4])
> on a rooted[5] android device newer than 2011 or armv7a[6], alongside
> the Android stack.
>
> The installation guide is at
>
>   https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:Android/tarball
>
> with a list of tested devices at
>
>   https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Android/Devices
>
>
> Next we are going to build a normal-user version, and to manage Android
> kernels with portage[7].
>
> Time to unleash the mobile power with Gentoo.
>
> Enjoy,
> Benda
>
> 1. https://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-dev-announce/message/
> 772326d735c8c7c469beffc0a9bb0b97
> 2. No chroot or PRoot
> 3. https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:Prefix/Technical_
> Documentation#EPREFIX_variable
> 4. https://projects.gentoo.org/pms/6/pms.html#x1-12100011.1.3
> 5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rooting_%28Android_OS%29
> 6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_ARMv7-A_cores
> 7. https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:Android
> 8. Previous announcement:
>https://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-dev-announce/message/
> 890e3e40977a37bb499fb02d35efe74a
>
>

Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo on Android stage3

[M. J. Everitt]

On 29/10/16 16:09, Benda Xu wrote:
> Hi Fellows,
>
> This is an announcement of the latest Gentoo on Android stage3 tarball,
>
>   
> http://distfiles.gentoo.org/experimental/prefix/rap/rap-stage3-armv7a_hardfp-20161026.tar.xz
>
> snapshot from the latest main Gentoo repository, featuring gcc-5.4,
> glibc-2.23, and the latest prefix-standalone (aka. RAP) profiles[1].
>
> The tarball runs Gentoo natively[2] under /data/gentoo (:=EPREFIX[3,4])
> on a rooted[5] android device newer than 2011 or armv7a[6], alongside
> the Android stack.
>
> The installation guide is at
>
>   https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:Android/tarball
>
> with a list of tested devices at
>
>   https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Android/Devices
>
>
> Next we are going to build a normal-user version, and to manage Android
> kernels with portage[7].
>
> Time to unleash the mobile power with Gentoo.
>
> Enjoy,
> Benda
>
> 1. 
> https://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-dev-announce/message/772326d735c8c7c469beffc0a9bb0b97
> 2. No chroot or PRoot
> 3. 
> https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:Prefix/Technical_Documentation#EPREFIX_variable
> 4. https://projects.gentoo.org/pms/6/pms.html#x1-12100011.1.3
> 5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rooting_%28Android_OS%29
> 6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_ARMv7-A_cores
> 7. https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:Android
> 8. Previous announcement:
>
> https://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-dev-announce/message/890e3e40977a37bb499fb02d35efe74a
>
COOL ! I'll have to give this a try .. got an old(er) Samsung Galaxy S4
Active, and I'm currently using the Huawei Nexus 6P ..

Keep up the good work! :D

MJE



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[gentoo-dev] Gentoo on Android stage3

[Benda Xu]

Hi Fellows,

This is an announcement of the latest Gentoo on Android stage3 tarball,

  
http://distfiles.gentoo.org/experimental/prefix/rap/rap-stage3-armv7a_hardfp-20161026.tar.xz

snapshot from the latest main Gentoo repository, featuring gcc-5.4,
glibc-2.23, and the latest prefix-standalone (aka. RAP) profiles[1].

The tarball runs Gentoo natively[2] under /data/gentoo (:=EPREFIX[3,4])
on a rooted[5] android device newer than 2011 or armv7a[6], alongside
the Android stack.

The installation guide is at

  https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:Android/tarball

with a list of tested devices at

  https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Android/Devices


Next we are going to build a normal-user version, and to manage Android
kernels with portage[7].

Time to unleash the mobile power with Gentoo.

Enjoy,
Benda

1. 
https://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-dev-announce/message/772326d735c8c7c469beffc0a9bb0b97
2. No chroot or PRoot
3. 
https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:Prefix/Technical_Documentation#EPREFIX_variable
4. https://projects.gentoo.org/pms/6/pms.html#x1-12100011.1.3
5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rooting_%28Android_OS%29
6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_ARMv7-A_cores
7. https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:Android
8. Previous announcement:
   
https://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-dev-announce/message/890e3e40977a37bb499fb02d35efe74a